THE mayor of Blackburn has been rapped by council officials after a charity used Blackburn with Darwen Council’s logo on its leaflet without seeking permission first.

Coun Salim Mulla has chosen to support the renal unit at Royal Blackburn Hospital as his mayoral charity, and is hoping to raise £40,000 in 2014 to buy one or possibly two kidney dialysis machines for the hospital.

But the mayor has also done a lot of work with Blackburn-based charity Al-Imdaad Foundation UK, including handing out presents at Newfield School, and taking a trip to Syria to officially open a purpose-built village for refugees.

To support his appeal the charity put out leaflets, which bore the council’s logo, asking people to donate money to fund the dialysis machines.

The logo was apparently taken from the council website, without express permission being sought from council officers.

But Hafez Abdussamad Mulla, Al-Imdaad’s country director, said all the leaflets had already been distributed, but nobody from the council had approached the charity to voice any concerns.

He said: “We sit with the mayor once a month at the mayor’s parlour to discuss how we can help to raise funds for the appeal.

“A few months ago we agreed we would print these leaflets, and we did, but no concerns were raised at the meeting.

“If it was a problem you’d think it would have been mentioned at the meeting. We’ve had no issues up to now and we’ve been doing quite well with raising funds for the appeal.”

Coun Mulla said he was unable to comment on the issue.

Coun Kate Hollern, leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council, said: “The Al-Imdaad Foundation UK is doing very valuable work alongside other volunteers of the Mayor’s charity committee. Its role is to support the Mayor’s charity but it is separate from the Mayor’s official role.”